Waterford City & County Council have rejected claims that their tenancy management team should have been aware that a council property was not being properly maintained.
The defence comes in the wake of footage of the ‘trashed’ property being recently circulated on social media.
The matter was raised at this month's Dungarvan and Lismore District, and among those to discuss the issue was Fine Gael Councillor Damien Geoghegan.
He says it is clear that the property was not being inspected as set out in the Council's tenancy agreement policy.
Tenancy agreement
"Last week, I took out the tenancy agreement that we give to all of our prospective tenants and I went through it, and I went through it on foot of a video that appeared recently", outlined Cllr. Geoghegan. "We all saw it, it went viral, shared on every WhatsApp group imaginable of the condition that one of our houses was handed back in recently. Our tenancy management failed in that situation."
"Rule 35 in the tenancy agreement that we ask people to sign up to states that the City and County Council should carry out periodic inspections of the dwelling and garden yard area to ensure that the terms of the tenancy agreement are being complied with", he outlined. "I totally understand and I accept that 99% of our tenants by and large look after their properties and look after the houses that they're given - but when we see properties like this - obviously, there's difficulties there. Then after a couple of years, the tenant vacates the house and then we see the condition that the house is in, that we would have known anyway. I think it's unacceptable for that to happen at a time when people are crying out for houses."
'Failure'
The reaction that I got from people was that it is shocking to think that (1:18) somebody, first of all, allowed a house to get into that situation. The supports are there for people who are finding it difficult, I have to say, as well. From our own point of view, our inspection regime has absolutely failed us in this regard. That was one for years that I was highlighting, Councillor John Pratt was also highlighting it. Only for we saw the video, I'd say a lot of people wouldn't have believed the condition the house was in."
Cllr. Geoghegan's sentiments were echoed by party colleague, Cllr. Pat Nugent - who says it was a 'shocking' situation.
"Absolutely, our tenancy management failed. We have it in our tenancy agreement and that particular situation was shocking. What are we doing when situations like that arise? In that situation, I mean, what could you say was good about Dungarvan, like, my God - Dungarvan came out in a very, very bad place in that. I don't know who the person was. I'm not going to discuss anybody. What I'm saying is if had we to rehouse that person in a new apartment, as what was said when the video circulated - that is tragic."
Defence
Director of Services for Housing with Waterford City & County Council, Ivan Grimes rejected the allegations of failure and leapt to the defence of the tenancy management team - highlighting that there are only four people working in the area at present. He said it is unrealistic to expect the local authority to inspect each and every home - and outlined that it is the responsibility of the public to make the Council aware of issues like these via their complaint channels.
"I'm not going to say anything that is going to identify any individual, because that would be completely inappropriate. The house in question was actually cleared out about three or four weeks ago. We have over 6,000 tenancies. It is not practical for us to go and carry out investigations, with a small enough team in tenancy management. Where we receive complaints, we do follow up on them. We became aware of a waste management issue in a property adjacent to it, which we're following up on. We can't assume that we know what's happening behind closed doors. We do rely on people making complaints."
"In some instances, we can't gain access to properties. Just because we say we're going to carry out periodic inspections doesn't necessarily mean the tenant is going to engage with us.There are quite a number of tenants of ours, probably somewhere between 500 and 1,000, who have never made contact with the council in relation to maintenance issues over the years. When we take back voids - at present, 20% of the cost of refurbishing the properties is dealing with whether it be waste or material left behind. 20% of the cost. We're spending about €15,000 per house - that means €3,000 has been spent on, effectively, waste management. The case in question was very, very difficult. I'm not commenting on it any further than that."
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